The metamorphosis of definition of punishment in international criminal law

The article is devoted to an attempt to generalise and systematise the preliminary considerations regarding the outline of the initial contours of the so-called “interdependence” of the internal content and specific formulations and expressions which are currently commonly used to refer to the concept of “punishment in international criminal law”. An assumption is suggested concerning the evolving nature of the definition of the notion of punishment in international criminal law, given the wide terminological variety of concepts and constructs present in scientific usage, which are as a rule either “located alongside” or “used instead”. At least eighteen, to a certain extent, unique and original phrases designed to describe phenomena similar to “punishment in international criminal law” are identified, among which a special emphasis is traditionally assigned to such specific syntactic units as “international punishment” and “international criminal punishment”, the use of which is quite typical and fairly evident in the modern scientific and information discourse. An assertion is made about the potential existence of a fundamental difference in the definition of the concept of punishment in international criminal law depending on the approaches to its perception, in view of the underlying method depicted in specific terms and categories: 1) through the prism of the imposition of punishment on specific individuals (“punishment of international criminals”); 2) by understanding punishment through the category of “incredible atrocities” (“punishment for international crimes”); 3) by “reading” its content from the perspective of international and national criminal justice bodies (“punishment in the law and practice of international criminal tribunals and courts, national and local institutions”); 4) comprehending its essence by inserting it into a certain setting (“punishment in international, transitional and transitional contexts”); 5) either from the standpoint and perspectives of legal norms (“punishment and international law, punishment and international criminal law”) or their violation (“punishment for violations of international criminal and international humanitarian law”). It is emphasized that further scientific investigations aimed at establishing the essence of each of the currently existing terms with a view to clarifying their content in order to develop a unified definition of the concept of punishment in international criminal law are expedient.